Letter to the Editor: School shootings, gun violence, and the NRA

Please spare me your pious outrage at the recent events in Marysville, Wash. We all knew that this would happen. The only thing we didn’t know was where and when. But the certainty of such a tragedy was foreseen by all except those who bloody-mindedly refuse to learn from history. Now we throw up our hands, yet again, and make profound pronouncements that this must never happen again, and then we do nothing.

Every time this happens we make all the right noises about ensuring that firearms do not get into the hands of those who would misuse them. Platitudes, nothing but platitudes. The fact that the gun used was legally owned is even paraded in public view, almost as if this condones the action of the errant student. I’m sure this is of great comfort to the grieving families.

Why do we persist in doing nothing? Because there are too many who are entrenched in their 18th century Second Amendment “rights”, who believe that even putting obstacles in the way of indiscriminate circulation of firearms is a sin – witness the hatred, yes, hatred, shown towards Andrew Cuomo in upstate New York in response to his legislation around indiscriminate firearm ownership. And because politics in this country is corrupt, fuelled by money from those who have, denying a voice to those who have not. The powerful lobbying of the NRA, amongst others, cows our Congress into utter inaction on this matter. Provided sufficient millions of dollars can be spent on misrepresenting and smearing those of a different political persuasion, the views of the majority of the electorate will never be heard against the din of the rich, and politicians will continue to bow down to the lobby, merely that they may have a chance to live to fight another day in Congress, maybe over some less contentious issue.

But back to Marysville, what will be our response this time? At the time of writing only two have died and three remain in critical condition, so the likely maximum death toll should not exceed five. Based on that, and on history, our response will be to change nothing at all. After all, the same questions were asked after Newtown (and Aurora and the Sikh temple in Wisconsin and Virginia Tech and Columbine and all the rest). In the case of Newtown, where twenty six died, the question was asked: How many must die before we do something about it? We have the answer loud and clear: Twenty-six is not enough. A mere five or fewer in Marysville will pass into history as nothing more than a statistic, a shameful statistic which sits in a record book and achieves nothing.

But Zoe Galasso and all the others – how many of us can now name even one victim at Newtown? – are not just statistics. They represent hope for the future extinguished; sundered families; lives with gaping holes rent in them; survivors guiltily wishing that they too were dead; and so much more that, thankfully, I cannot bring to mind. Every time we do nothing we dishonour the memories of these innocent victims who have died as a result of the misuse of freely available firearms. We prove that they did indeed die in vain.

When you go to the polls in the near future, will you know your candidates’ views on the issue of firearm legislation? Will it make any difference to how you vote? If not, then shame on you for your spineless indifference.